Winter by Marissa Meyer (SPOILERS)

Okay, normally I try to avoid including spoilers in my review, but I find that I just cannot talk about this book without them. So reader be warned.

This book was everything that I wanted it to be and more. I think it must be hard when you have such a hyped series to end it in a way that is satisfying for everyone–but I think Meyer was (for the most part) able to accomplish that. I liked that the book starts right where the third book left off. It really throws the reader into this world in a way that they become immediately invested in what’s going on. Meyer is also very good at doing some recapping without it feeling like review (especially for those of us readers who just discovered and devoured the series this last year). The characters were all just as great as they were in the previous books and had the same witty banter going back and forth. There were a lot of times in this book (and the past ones) where I’m just going, “Okay, how the heck are they going to get out of this one? There’s no way everything will work out okay!” But then it does and even better than that–it makes sense how it does. Sometimes an author will do something and I’ll think, “Hmmm…not so sure about that” but not with these books.

The fairy tale elements were awesome and seamless. Every time something started happening to echo the actual fairy tale of Snow White, I would get a little excited. I don’t know why, but I got a little giddy when they brought out the stasis chamber or whatever to save Winter. I just thought it was all so clever!

I love how strong all of the female characters are in this book. Not only are they strong, but they are strong in perhaps traditionally masculine ways. Cinder is a great mechanic, Scarlet is a skilled pilot, Cress is an awesome hacker, Winter is a great natural leader, even Levana is a really good strategist (though I hate to admit it). It’s so awesome to me that these books are based off of fairy tales where the women are portrayed as damsels in distress. In these books, the women are saving the men just as much as (if not more than) the men are saving the women. Girl power!

Now that I’ve talked about how awesome the women are…I can’t help but gush over the romances. I seriously ship Thorne and Cress so hard. The other romances are fine–whatever. But I LIVED for the scenes between Thorne and Cress *sigh*. On another note, the most heartbreaking thing in this book for me was Wolf’s transformation after he’s been captured. Obviously I knew that Scarlet would still love him, but for some reason it really made me sad that this irreversible thing had happened to him. How can something like that not change their relationship? It has to.

Okay, just to wrap up, there were a couple of things that I didn’t like about this book. First, I think it’s unrealistic that all nine of our main characters made it out alive (the four couples plus Iko). They go through this huge battle–Lunar citizens are being killed left and right–but all nine of our protagonists make it through with only slight injuries? It’s just not realistic. I mean, compare this to Harry Potter, right? Sure our three main characters made it out, but not all of the characters who had been there from the beginning did. In fact, quite a few of my favorite characters ended up dying. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m happy they all survived and can live Happily Ever After–but is this realistic? I think you’ll agree with me that it is NOT. Second, I saw another blogger bring up that the book does not look like it’s over 800 pages long (due to the thinness of the pages). While my shelf space is grateful for this, my pride as a reader wishes that the book looked like it was as long as it is. Yes, I want people to visit my apartment and go, “Whoa, you read that whole thing?” Vain, I know. But what can I say?

Overall, I thought this book was GREAT. Totally worth the wait, definitely worth the hype. If you liked the first three books, you’ll like this one. If you haven’t read the first three books, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR??? Seriously, you need to pick this series up ASAP.

Overall Rating: 5
Language: None
Violence: Heavy. Very large quantity, but not a lot of gory details.
Smoking/Drinking: Mild
Sexual Content: Mild